Family Christmas 2011

Despite taking my camera along, I actually snapped very few pictures at yesterday's big family Christmas at my brother's house. Somehow I was just too distracted by the dozen kids around me who were all hopped up on sugar and Christmas anticipation! Fortunately, others were much more diligent about their photography chore than I was, so I imagine a wealth of photos will shortly show up on Facebook. In the meantime, at least I have one showing great-nephew Hunter playing Santa, with approximately 1/3 of the attendees visible. Richard is on the right, seated, with his back to me. The table on the left has a half dozen 'stacks' of presents, one for each of his grandchildren between the ages of 10 and 17. These older kids were tasked a couple of months ago with writing a short essay on what animal they would be if they could be any animal, and then their gifts were all selected to fit that theme. You might be able to spot the giraffe (Natasha) and monkey (Hunter) at the top of two of the piles; also present were eagle (Connor), otter (Hillary), platypus (Ty) and snake (Emma). My sister-in-law, Meena, did an incredible job coming up with about a dozen gifts each to fit her lucky older grandchildren's essays, while the younger ones received a similar number of unthemed gifts (being handed out by Hunter in the shot above).

Here's another part of the room around the same time, including lovely Vicki taking it all in. In the foreground of this one is 5-year-old Bruce, who spent most of the evening punching me, kicking me, jumping on me, and trying to convince me that he wasn't about to throw up on me due to over-excitement (as his mother, Peggy, kept assuring me he would). I might've also been punching, kicking, wrestling and otherwise bullying him, but there's no proof of that at all! Bruce is actually a total blast to play with, and every time we get together I end up spending way too much time with him... but I'm still waiting to make him vomit! He did tell me last night that if he came over to my house, he would definitely puke in my face. So I've still got that to look forward to!

Vicki and I had a great time, despite the overwhelming nature of the day (keeping in mind that Christmas has historically been Vicki, Tammy and I... and maybe a cat or two!). Richard and Meena really know how to throw a Christmas party, and we can hardly wait for next year's! (They'll both be cringing if they read that last bit!)